Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads :: :: University of Virginia Library

I'm all day watching the glow
Of the gold and the crimson wine;
All day watching the amethysts grow
In bunches upon the vine;
All night watching the blood spring out
From the life of the trampled fruit;
All night watching the seething vats
When the cross stars trail and shoot.

I hold the long glass up to the sun,
Seeing the ruby burn,
Marking the dull, dark hue of the wine
To a glistening topaz turn,
When the hidden fire that brings me joy
Steals swift into my brain,
This wine hath the scent of the April shower,
And the glow of the summer rain.

174

I hear the hum of the troubled cask,
And the buzz and rush of the wine,
When the red tide pours in the weltering tun,
And its black beads rise and shine.
I love the tuneful drip, drip, drip,
Of the golden leak of the cask,
As one by one the drops in tune,
Fall in their measured task.

I hear the gurgle and rush
From the long-necked tapering flask,
The flow of jewels that twinkling shine,
Rippling out of the cask.
I sit in the mellow afternoon,
Dozing over my wine,
And hear the voice of the vineyard thrush
Oozing from out the vine;

I hear the roosting chirp of the finch,
In the thick of the dark elm tree;
And the drawling tramp, in the white dust road,
Of the reapers two and three;
And I seem to myself alone with the dead,
In a twilight purgatory,
Till I sit and croon the merry old tune
That I made for Margery.

175

I'm all day watching the rush
Of the column of beads in the glass;
I guard the flow of the silver tap,—
Singing a leisurely mass;
Stirring the wine with a picotee,
Or clove with its velvety red,
And talking of how many years ago
The man who grew them was dead.

I watch the fountain rush
Of the swift, bright bubbles that rise,
Comparing their scent to ladies' breath,
And their glitter to ladies' eyes.
I watch the cream of the snowy foam
Churned from the yellow wines,
And down through the liquor a good long foot,
The gold of the tankards shines.

The scented fire of the Moselle grape,
And the flowery juice of the Hock,
The Virgin's milk—the holiest wine
Of the Rhine-land abbot's stock;
And the tears of Christ, from the lava dust,
Run fluid gold in the cup;
They're things to be drunk with a hymn or a prayer,
And eye-balls turning up.

176

And here I sit, with my cup and my jug,
And my silver tankards three;
This is Annie, and that is Fanny,
And this is Joan, by my knee.
They are my wives and my children dear,
My father and mother and all;
And they are my priests, for I empty each,
In the name of the good St. Paul.